While I very much enjoyed Mercenaries up through the clubs, I have hit a definate wall with the diamonds. I guess its because the gameplay is just getting a tad repetetive, so I trun it on and do a mission or two, and then feel bored. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as this is a game that is SO easy to just play for 30 minutes at a time.

One thing that frustrates me is that you dont really get a lot of hints about the cards without doign missions and the only missions I have left squarely pit one faction against each other and I have been at least trying to stay away from that...

Bleh get over it and pill those suckers off. you should not care if they are happy or not, your a merc lol. Seriously tho if you plan on doing the faction missions then you are gonna piss people off. not much you can do but avoid it. The good news is people like money and the factions are no exception. simply grab a car disguise your self and go to the faction HQ. talk to the guard and pay him 100gs to like you again. If you are capping the cards and not killing them, then thats chump change.

As far as finding the number cards, i find the best way to do it is to grab a chopper. Fly over the places those hints vaugly point too and most of the time you will have no problem finding them.

Ok this all makes sense-but you cannto find the number cards until you have intel right? ANd you dont get that intel until you do the faction missions, so essentially there is no choice-you must do at least the majority of them..l

False:

The number cards are on the map from the begining of the game. they are always there no matter if you are drving around or on a mission for a faction. The Face cards however only spawn as part of a faction mission,. The Ace is so special you not only have to do a mission to make him spawn, but he is on his own island or land mass seperate from the map you are used too. This allows you to play the game 2 ways. You can do the faction missions and end up cathing all 3 face cards. 3 face cards will give you the intel you need to go after the ace. however you could also play the game as a treasure hunter. Find all 10 number cards and that will open up the Ace for you.

haven't done the ace of clubs yet as i want to do all the missions first. do the random missions change after an ace gets brought down?

After catching the Ace all remaining contracts for that suite will close. Furthermore after catching an Ace the map changes to accomidate the new suite and the changes that where made in the corse of the story from the first suite. The missions for each faction will also change to reflect the changes to the world and the fact that you are going after the new suite.

I have a lot of luck finding the numbered bounties (2-10) by just driving down those random dirt roads outside the towns. Almost always I find a bounty somewhere in the area, even if I don't have the intel.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

Ive seen a couple of attack choppers flying around. infact i had to kill one in a mish where i had to defend teh chinesse from a South Korean attack. Anyone found a place to jack one of these yet? im dying to fly one, but cant seem to find them anywhere at all. The one i killed was almost definatly a SK chopper, wich was strange because it was the only air unit ive seen for the SK in the whole game. Im not talking about the little bird rip offs the NK flys im talking about a Air wolf kind of affair.

Ive seen a couple of attack choppers flying around. infact i had to kill one in a mish where i had to defend teh chinesse from a South Korean attack. Anyone found a place to jack one of these yet? im dying to fly one, but cant seem to find them anywhere at all. The one i killed was almost definatly a SK chopper, wich was strange because it was the only air unit ive seen for the SK in the whole game. Im not talking about the little bird rip offs the NK flys im talking about a Air wolf kind of affair.

In the Diamond mission where you assault the Black Gate and have to destroy the artillery (Jack of Diamonds?) mission I think a Commanche type gunship appears on the SK airstrip at Kaeson(sp?). It's in a SK restricted area near the airstrip, just south of the gate to get in. I'm pretty sure it's been there everytime I came back after doing that mission.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

I like the balance I've seen so far with the vehicles, aircraft and weapons. Just when I think I'm unstoppable in a tank, I get blown apart by 2 grunts with rpgs, or a helicopter turns my tank into scrap metal. Anti-air is nasty in this game too, so flying around can be dicey. I have my preferences for weapons, but I haven't found 1 that was much better than the rest. I like being able to change my loadout on the fly with supply drops.

So it looks like you can have 1 vehicle parked at each faction HQ...good to know.

I jumped into a humvee at the base you start at and accidentally ran over a reporter...

I was fined 1 *MILLION* dollars for it. Not only that, but I hadn't saved the game after killing the previous boss so I had to take the financial hit.

So be really really careful when there are reporters around.

I don't even have a million dollars. Ouch.

LOL. I accidently nailed one when I was on the Clubs. He was literally standing in the middle of a bunch of NK with his camera and I put a bullet in his head... my bad, but he was asking for it.

Only docked my 100k by the way, so it might scale up as you progress.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

As related previously, I only got a PS2 to play GTASA (normally a PC'er), but reading this thread convinced me to pick up Mercenaries. It's been a hoot (translation: rad, the bomb, bad, phat... pick one)

I've had a little trouble with aiming, but I'm getting used to it. It's a lot of fun a mission at a time, as someone noted above.

My big problem is that I can't find a copy of this near me!! I went to the nearest GameStop last night and they sold the display copy as I was standing in line, I called EBX and they had just sold their last copy, and I've been to two Targets who were both out. :x

For now, I guess I'm stuck replaying the OXM demo and trying out new things in there (helicopter, civilian vehicles, etc).

I jumped into a humvee at the base you start at and accidentally ran over a reporter...

I was fined 1 *MILLION* dollars for it. Not only that, but I hadn't saved the game after killing the previous boss so I had to take the financial hit.

So be really really careful when there are reporters around.

I don't even have a million dollars. Ouch.

J we gotta talk about your tactics my man, i was 100k and change off of 2 mill when i started the diamond suite. I hate to say it, but i think you might be blowing up too much stuff my man.

But I like blowing stuff up. When one grenade will do, I use two. I'll blow up 7 fuel trucks, just because I can.

Those commercials have infected my conscience. Everything I see I want to fire an RPG at. I ordered tons of air-strikes on buildings that didn't need to be destroyed. I shot down random helicopters, I ran over assorted soldiers. I always steal chinese helicopters if I see them. I throw grenades at large groupings of soldiers, whether they're friendly or not. I shoot drivers of random vehicles in Pyongang just so I can take the car/truck/etc to the mafia garage.

And that's just scratching the surface.

Seriously. I mean.. you saw the Bunker Buster. How is one supposed to focus on getting money after that? I just want to find more things to blow up, and see how many odd ways I can find to make things go boom.

For instance.. the only reporter I've killed to this point I killed with a laser-guided pin-point airstrike while they filmed some North Korean battle

I jumped into a humvee at the base you start at and accidentally ran over a reporter...

I was fined 1 *MILLION* dollars for it. Not only that, but I hadn't saved the game after killing the previous boss so I had to take the financial hit.

So be really really careful when there are reporters around.

I don't even have a million dollars. Ouch.

J we gotta talk about your tactics my man, i was 100k and change off of 2 mill when i started the diamond suite. I hate to say it, but i think you might be blowing up too much stuff my man.

But I like blowing stuff up. When one grenade will do, I use two. I'll blow up 7 fuel trucks, just because I can.

Those commercials have infected my conscience. Everything I see I want to fire an RPG at. I ordered tons of air-strikes on buildings that didn't need to be destroyed. I shot down random helicopters, I ran over assorted soldiers. I always steal chinese helicopters if I see them. I throw grenades at large groupings of soldiers, whether they're friendly or not. I shoot drivers of random vehicles in Pyongang just so I can take the car/truck/etc to the mafia garage.

And that's just scratching the surface.

Seriously. I mean.. you saw the Bunker Buster. How is one supposed to focus on getting money after that? I just want to find more things to blow up, and see how many odd ways I can find to make things go boom.

For instance.. the only reporter I've killed to this point I killed with a laser-guided pin-point airstrike while they filmed some North Korean battle

Rofl man, who can argue with a post like that. I suppose you dont need money when you have fun like that. Carry on soldier.

I don't have the full game, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems counter-intuitive to me that you are fined for destroying military equipment, buildings and soldiers. Isn't the whole point of the game to destroy enemy structures and capture or kill their leaders?

You are fined for killing innocents, such as civilians and press. I got fined 25,000 for running over a civilian when the press were present. Dumb ass man walked right in front of my tank... now tell me how the hell is a tank supposed to stop on a dime...so I just plowed em down. No big deal.. I sold the tank to the russians and hijacked another vehicle or two and it paid for itself.

I checked out where I found that SK Attack Chopper and it's definitely in the SK restricted area at Ichon after you do the mission where you assault the Black Gate. If you drive that way you can see it behind the fence on the left. Very sweet little chopper.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

I just wanted to see if anybody else was having this problem or if I am just blind....

I find that the characters are too small to tell who is on what faction and that my aiming is horrible with the analog stick. I also feel that the game is a bit dark, again could be me going blind. Would this be a symptom of playing it in 480p? I like the game though except I suck at it.

I find that the characters are too small to tell who is on what faction and that my aiming is horrible with the analog stick.

I think you can hit the right on D-pad, to turn faction flag on/off.

Left actually. Right goes to the Mafia website.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

Oh, yeah. You are right, it's left on D-pad, no wonder everytime I hit right on D-pad, it send me to mafia webpage. :oops:

No worries... I didn't even figure that out or that I had flashbangs until last night.

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

Im like 1/3 of the way through the diamonds now and I am having a lot of fun. I pick it up for an hour or so at a time and its a blast, though it gets repetitive in long play sessions. I like to play with helicopters because I hate driving around, and I have wasted a ton of money staying in everyones good graces to do the story mmissions. I mainly just kill NK forces, because I am trying to keep my faction up with the other guys, which might be robbing me of some of the fun. I have to say that in some strange desire to horde money (i have about 2 million now), I have rarely, if EVER used the cool bombing weapons. Its time to change that...it just seems like they are so expensive that using one of those special bombs or artillery strikes costs almost as much as the reward!

Anyways, fun game, best in smaller doses...I never was a fan of GTA at all, but if they are popular because of this style of gameplay, well, Mercenaries does it a hell of a lot better. Hopefully it will sell well.

Since I don’t have a lot of patience with contracts that require a lot of subtlety and discretion, I’ve tanked my faction rep a few times already with the Chinese and South Koreans (you know, the missions where you’re not supposed to be seen blowing the crap out of their <insert targets>). So far it hasn’t been too hard to raise faction rep back up by doing contracts for them and having their soldiers witness my dastardly deeds against the NKs.

As a general rule, the faction restricted zones (blue) seem to have the best equipment ripe for the borrowing. Depending on what contracts you did, there are some pretty sweet vehicles and helicopters just waiting to be hijacked in those zones. Not to mention statues to blow up and lots of goodies to grab.

I hate the in-car controls, since I'm so used to hitting the triggers for gas and brake, and instead they are brake and bail-out. I can't tell you how many times I've been coming fast at a corner and try to hit the e-brake but instead bail out watch the hummer coast into the nearest building or blockade.

The on-foot controls aren't really standard, either. Normally you would have jump mapped to A and reload to B or X. This isn't nearly as big of a deal, but it has already gotten me into trouble a couple times.

I hate the in-car controls, since I'm so used to hitting the triggers for gas and brake, and instead they are brake and bail-out. I can't tell you how many times I've been coming fast at a corner and try to hit the e-brake but instead bail out watch the hummer coast into the nearest building or blockade.

The on-foot controls aren't really standard, either. Normally you would have jump mapped to A and reload to B or X. This isn't nearly as big of a deal, but it has already gotten me into trouble a couple times.

Fair enough complaint, one should always be able to change the controls. I think thats the PC gamer in us tho #9, because most of the consoles i have dont let you change the config. those that do let you choose between some predetermined ones and thats just as bad for me. i dont think i own a single game that lets you actualy redefine each button.

As for the in car controls tho that made me happy. Im a old race car game player, i loved games like the original Ridge racer . Most of those gams used Gas on A and brakes on X. Mabey thats why they did it.

Yeah, I've hit "eject" instead of "brake" my fair share of times. It's more of a humorous event than not, though. Sending my Humvee full of unwitting troops off the edge of a cliff is good for a laugh.

Speaking of laughs, last night south of Nampo I was on foot, chasing a Chinese APC, and it drove straight off a cliff and into the river. Then I looked down in the river and I saw a NK jeep. WTH ... maybe it was chasing the jeep? It was goofy.

Just cause yer playin in a NK war doesn't matter you gotta be smokin that stuff.

Heh, anyhow, about 1/3 of the way through diamonds as of last night. Loving it more and more.

Accidently blew up two blackhawks though in one mission which made the allies unfriendly to me, then I managed to blow up some SK stuff with artillery which i honestly didn't mean to drop the smoker for at that time=) They went straight to outright hatred of me.

But, I found some allies that would join me in an APC with a 30MM auto cannon and drove em around a while slaughtering NK till they were neutral again. SK still hates me...but WTH....

I finished the mafia Diamons missions and now i'm doing the chineese.

The only problem i have with the game is the missions where your target is by a tunnel that continuously spawns vehicles forever, can these be destroyed? I dropped a bunker buster on one and it didn't seem to phase it=( The reticle doesn't turn red either so i'm not sure if these can even be blown. Lemme know...

the chop shop is just down the street from the mafia hq. a large building with a few mafiosa in front.

i have noticed that your faction hit is so much smaller when you stay back out of range. for instance, in a mafia mish to "dissuade" the SK by thwarting their attack on an NK base, i managed to stay back enough and didn't get any negative faction. i did end up getting squished by an SK humvee who i think saw me blow up his buddies.

its odd they way npc's can end up targeting you for being in a battle. i had an allied soldier shoot at me after i helped them and the chinese take down a small NK force.

*MINOR SPOILER*.....I'm really digging this game. I just got through the Diamonds (missed 5 or 6, but did the Ace), and I was just about ready to put it aside for a while having visited all the major areas and done all the secondary challenges at least once on the main map. But lo and behold it opened up a second map Genius!

I've only played the demo so I hope the full version is different. Is there anything such as jump to target? For some reason I way overstear aiming. Its significantly harder to aim and hit something in the heat of the battle unlike say Vice City. Did they at least tighten up the controls?

Despite the comparisons to vice city, this is a lucasarts game, not a rockstar game....

Yes, the controls are tighter than rockstar games. Aiming is much easier IMHO. Much MUCH easier than a rockstar game.

Its like....actually easy to aim.

edit: oh, and i'm still not sure how to destroy a respawning vehicle bunker. This is the only thing REALLY pissing me off is not being able to stem the tide of vehicles long enough to make a capture.

I got other questions too: for ex: I keep hearing about all the things to find and destroy in the faction only areas but the only one i know about is the Chineese area up in the NW of the first map, and I can't seem to find anything there except a cool light attack helicopter now that i'm almost done with the diamonds. Where are all these statues n stuff?

Maybe i'm in need of a walkthrough at this point to guide me to more content.

Last question: Any way to do the SK Destroy the fuel trucks and depots mission without taking chineese faction hits or is it just a given?

I did all the chineese and mafia missions in the diamonds suit and enough of the normal cards that the Ace is open, but i'd like to do all the missions to open all the content....don't feel like ruining chineese faction though.

I tried calling in a bunker buster on one of the large respawn bunkers, and initially it looked like it had no effect. About 3 seconds later after the huge shock wave, the bunker turned into rubble and my $ meter began rolling like crazy. I missed how much I earned since I was so focused on the shock wave effect and seeing it crumble. When I played again later in the day, that exact bunker was back in action like nothing ever happened.

The best equipment is normally in the faction restricted areas, although some new equipment won’t “open up” or appear until you start a scripted contract or get to a certain point in the game. As you progress further into the game and capture or kill more cards, check back at the AN, CH and SK HQ zones, you may notice some surprises.

The statues just take some driving around and exploring to find. Btw, they did a good job hiding some of the national treasures in really off the wall and remote places.